Food & Tobacco

Foodservice is an integral component of truckstop and travel plaza operations. NATSO members offer a wide variety of food options, from sit-down and quick-service restaurants to grab-and-go options at a travel store or a convenience store. NATSO advocates on a variety of foodservice topics to help provide meaningful solutions for its members’ food-related issues.

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The Food and Drug Administration issued a proposal March 13 to restrict sales of flavored e-cigarettes and require that retailers establish adult-only areas or take other steps to limit access to flavored e-cigarettes to anyone under age 18. The move marks the latest in a string of aggressive steps targeting convenience stores and other smaller format retail establishments that sell tobacco and e-cigarette products, including truckstops, in recent weeks.

In the last week, the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has taken several aggressive steps that target convenience stores and other smaller format retail establishments that sell tobacco and e-cigarette and vaping products. It is part of a growing history of FDA Administrator Scott Gottlieb targeting the convenience store industry. Last year, in a televised interview on CNBC, Administrator Gottlieb specifically mentioned "truckstops" when citing stores that do not sufficiently comply with underage tobacco sales restrictions. NATSO is very troubled by such remarks and any effort to specifically target travel centers or convenience stores.

NATSO joined a letter with other organizations welcoming furloughed employees of the Food and Nutrition Service, which administers the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP, formerly known as Food Stamps), back to work after having been furloughed during the government shutdown.

As the current partial government shutdown continues into its fourth week, one of the lingering concerns that may ultimately help bring politicians together to reopen the government is the potential for SNAP beneficiaries to lose out on their benefits if the government is not reopened. (The Department of Agriculture (USDA), which administers the SNAP program, is not currently funded.) To avoid this issue for the month of February, USDA will be distributing February benefits in the month of January; no new benefits will be distributed in February.